Dare to be Vulnerable

Strangers can be valuable teachers. Especially when they’re your critics.

I had a reminder of this recently after posting the opening segments of a seminar I had facilitated on YouTube. Of course, you never know who will view these things…or what comments they will make. A few days after the material was posted the following comment caught my eye:

“She has not attained. Her words are wiser than she is. Why is she nervous?”

This was not a particularly provocative or mean-spirited comment, but the last sentence caught my attention. I have no delusion of being enlightened, so I scanned right over the first two sentences…yep…yep…yikes.

“Why is she nervous?”

Why was I nervous? The truth is, no matter how much public speaking I do – and I’ve done thousands of talks by now – I still get a little nervous at the start. After a few minutes I relax and settle in, but the beginning can be shaky. I replayed the video clip and, while I couldn’t see glaring signs of nervousness, I knew it had been true. On that day, as in many of my other talks, my heart rate had quickened, my breathe became short, my usually clear mind became a bit clouded. A typical fight or flight response I’m sure any psychologist would say. But what was the perceived threat? What was I preparing to defend myself from?

What makes this question even more perplexing is that I love the areas I speak about – conscious business, social entrepreneurship, sustainability, meditation & spiritual practice, awakening our selves and our world. What could be more inspiring? I also love the people I engage with, seeing everyone as a unique expression of the creative force, all on a path to discovering their greatness. I delight in the possibility that, in some small way, I am extending an invitation, supporting each person as they step forward into their highest expression.

So why was I nervous?

Over breakfast with my dear friend Peter, I brought this up. Peter is the kind of friend whose wisdom is a constant wellspring. The most unexpected tidbits pop out of his mouth, at once surprising, deceptively profound and incredibly on target.

I asked Peter, “What is nervousness?”

“A defense against vulnerability,” he replied.

The response came instantly, as if from the depths of his consciousness, not mediated by thought or screened through any human filter.

We both sat startled, silently contemplating this declaration.

Exploring Vulnerability

Vulnerability was a theme that had been coming up lately. It had been the topic of my women’s meditation circle for the last several months.

When we say we feel vulnerable, we often mean we feel raw, uncomfortable, sensitive, exposed, fearful. In a very simple way, we are also saying that we are feeling MORE, and that feeling itself makes us uncomfortable.

While it’s quite natural for our defenses to be activated when we are feeling deeply, the beautiful thing about being vulnerable is that when we feel more, we think less. As we allow ourselves to feel, we bring more of our attention to the heart, shifting our center of gravity from the head to the heart. When we are deep in the heart, it is nearly impossible to also be in judgment.

Knowing this, when we go into judgment, we can cultivate the practice of moving our attention from the head to the heart. What happens? We have to feel the pain of our judgment. We have to feel the sensation rather than using our thoughts as a defense. It is equally powerful, when listening to someone else, to feel what they are saying rather than to simply think about what they are saying.

Imagine if our political leaders showed up listening with their hearts. Imagine if in business meetings people came prepared to be vulnerable. In our defense against vulnerability we come with our hearts closed and our heads clogged with judgment.

To dare to be vulnerable is to dare to be present with our full experience, to bring our entire self into the conversation of life, to show up undefended. If we can be fully present with our vulnerability, we can move past it into openness -- the place where we are present to change and to the unknown without fear. We realize there is nothing to hide or protect, no need to defend, and this knowing gives us freedom of unlimited choice.

The Path toward Openness

As I reflected on the remainder of the stranger’s posting I took heart, as the rest of the message felt like an acknowledgement of being on the path.

“She has not attained. Her words are wiser than she is.”

Even in our defended-ness, if our intention is pure, we can to tap into wisdom far deeper than ourselves. Grace is a sublime power and doesn’t give up on us easily. The “she” this person was referring to was the individual, egoic Stacey that operates in the realm of form and limitation. “She” (the individual identity) will never know true wisdom. But when we open up to the vast creative intelligence of the universal mind, we can access wisdom far greater than we are. As the “she” starts to dissolve, we become an empty vessel for grace to flow into the world, an instrument for a larger voice. I was heartened that my defense against vulnerability had not closed these channels entirely. There was still room for grace and it had seized even the smallest of openings.

So as I reflected on these three short sentences, I felt drawn to recast them in a slightly different way…

“You are on a path of awakening. You have access to wisdom far greater than yourself. Remember, there is nothing to defend – open your heart to the great mystery and let its wisdom flow through you.”

Many thanks to those, including anonymous YouTube critics, who are the mirrors for our reflection.

Are You Part of the 11%?

Social scientists say it takes only 11% of the population to stimulate an evolutionary shift in social consciousness.

Doesn’t it take a majority, you might wonder, to make real change?

Consider that far fewer than a majority marched with Dr. Martin Luther King to establish basic civil rights. Less than a majority of the people stood with Gandhi in his peaceful resistance against the British for sovereignty. Not even a majority supported our founding fathers in their revolutionary vision for an independent nation. Yet, each inspired change far beyond their numbers.

While it doesn’t take a majority to create transformative change, it does take enough. When enough people’s hearts and minds are open, the collective consciousness is open, and the possibility for radical transformation exists. When enough people’s actions are in alignment with their higher, connected, selves radical transformation will occur.

For the last two weeks, I’ve been asking the question of who you really are. Do you identify solely with your individual personality – your roles, your relationships, your resume – or do you choose to go deeper, recognizing the universal animating energy that connects you with others, our planet, and all of existence?

I was not asking a simple psychological question, but calling your heart and mind forward to recognize your essential nature. I was asking you to make a fundamental evolutionary shift toward recognizing your deep interconnectedness with everyone and everything around you.

According to best-selling author and speaker Marianne Williamson, “There is no way for us to lay claim to the possibility of a planet which has taken a quantum leap forward, unless we are willing to lay claim to the possibility of our own individual selves taking a quantum leap forward.”

What does she mean? By cultivating a deeper recognition of who we really are – opening to the reality of our universal nature and essential oneness with all humankind – we create the conditions for a quantum leap. We can expand from the narrowness of our individual viewpoints to a wider perception of the interconnected whole. Quoting again the profound Sage I met in India, “When you are willing to become nothing (surrendering the false personal identity), then you can become everything.”

Are there enough of us committed to this humbling and profound journey of self-discovery? Does the number of brave souls willing to offer this gift to the world total 11%?

Stepping toward our personal and collective liberation can be scary and even painful. It is also the most compassionate, loving act of service we can give to ourselves and our planet. When we start living our lives in alignment with our higher Self, we invite everyone around us to act, speak, reveal, heal and operate in full accordance with their higher wisdom too. The consciousness of a few begins to elevate the whole, creating a collective field of truth and integrity that will be mirrored in the world.

“As we make changes in our own lives, those changes will be reflected in the world,” says Williamson.

Are you ready for a quantum leap forward, individually and collectively? From the women suffragettes to the civil rights movement, history shows that it takes just a small group of committed individuals, just 11%, to truly make a difference. Will you be one of them?


IMBED VIDEO:

CAPTION: In this video, bestselling author Marianne Williamson dares us to become part of the 11% of people that can transform the world.


Marianne Williamson can be found at www.marianne.com

Stacey Lawson can be found out www.staceylawson.com

More on IONS at www.ions.org

The Mythical Journey of the Soul

The Mythical Journey of the Soul

The great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, studied the many ways in which we believe. He found common among the world’s wisdom traditions a sense of the creative animation of spirit, of Source, or Godhead…yet there are undeniably myriad paths to realization.

Every soul is on a journey -- a journey of discovery, awakening and realization of the true nature of existence.

Our mystical traditions have mapped what Campbell called the Hero’s Journey. Surprisingly, when we set aside the specific details of faith, a deeper set of mythological or archetypal forces emerge that are common to all. While the paths may be many, the themes of the journey are universal.

These common themes give us a collective context to hold our experiences (where we might have been disoriented, we now see the larger picture) and to recognize our commonality (where we might have felt alone, we can unite in shared insight). They give us wisdom into who we are and what we are doing here.


Slumbering in Darkness

The journey starts in darkness. On the soul’s journey, darkness represents ignorance or lack of understanding of the soul’s true nature. In our ignorance, we perceive ourselves as separate from the broader whole, as finite individuals with particular identities.

This illusion of duality leads us to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, seek out good and resist bad, yearn for success and deny failure, a process which causes anxiety and suffering as we attempt to protect and glorify our individual ego.

In this process, we falsely identify with the story line of our lives, the cast of characters, and the drama. Absorbed in our personal plot, we don’t yet realize we are actors in a much larger divine play designed to reveal the eternal story of the soul.


The Call to Adventure

Through some alchemy or grace, maybe through reading a book or speaking to a friend, or perhaps through our own questioning of “why am I here”, we start the awakening process.

We get an inkling of something more. We may start to notice a witnessing attention which sits behind the activity of our daily lives. We may also begin to question the usefulness of our ego and our highly over-rated logical mind, sensing something greater, wiser, more intuitive and profound brewing inside us.

This inquiry starts to shed light onto the mysteries the divine has constructed for us, allowing us to see our experiences as fodder for our soul’s evolution. The process of “waking up” may be the actual story line here. What used to seem like the central stuff of life – getting married, building careers, having children, acquiring things – become the stage and props for the unfolding archetypal tale.

We gain a new perspective, expanding beyond our previous limited individual absorption. With the Call to Adventure, we start our journey down the path of discovering ourselves as aspects of the greater interconnected oneness. We don’t know what the path looks like, or how it will unfold, but we know that we’re on it.

A light has been turned on.


The Road of Trials

From here, everything goes to hell in a hand-basket.

As the light starts to do its work, illuminating the darkness of our ignorance, it simultaneously dissolves the false self.

All the identities we’ve created to keep us safe and keep us small and keep us in our box, start to crumble. The soul doesn’t care about our protection strategies…it wants to be free! Like an old suit that doesn’t fit anymore, our ego attachments and personal agendas start to get stripped away piece by piece.

The Road of Trials is a journey into the shadow. It’s not just the ego as a protection mechanism that gets broken down, but also our resistance to recognizing the fullness of who we are. We must go into the shadow and reclaim the parts that we’ve tucked away, hidden in the closet, or denied. “I’m not petty, I’m not greedy, I’m not violent. I’m not [insert whatever is most repulsive to you].” This stage is about recognizing that we are indeed those qualities too. Only by owning the fullness of the Self can we bring compassion when greeting these qualities in the world.

Once we have traveled this road we come to understand how difficult it is for humanity to claim our shadow qualities. If we fail to do this, staying in collective denial, our deepest shadow fears will be acted out time and again on the world stage. As awakening ones, we represent a different possibility, a possibility of healing and integration of the shadow at a soul level.

By embracing the shadow, we learn that there’s nothing outside of our consciousness. Everything reflected in the world around us is actually resident in our inner landscape -- we are All That Is. But in order to truly experience All That Is, we must die to the parts of ourselves that keep us limited. This can be a terrible, excruciating death if we cling or resist. It can also be a luxurious, ecstatic, delicious death if we open to the divinity that is our birthright. We rarely experience just one or the other -- the passageway to freedom is narrow, and as the ego experiences its own annihilation it is both ecstatic and excruciating.

Ultimately, the price for our liberation is surrendering our much coveted limitation. Many serious spiritual teachers have taught, “It isn’t my job to coddle you, it’s my job to kill you.” Under the guidance of the enlightened ones, the Road of Trials stimulates the systematic dissolution of the false self so the glory of the eternal soul might be recognized. Ultimately, our ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness.

We become free.


Mastery of Both Worlds

Where does this journey deliver us? Back to the beginning.

As fully awakened beings we recognize the eternal perfection of the soul that has existed all along. We walk in the world with a sense of universal consciousness, surrendered existence, and deep compassionate service. We perceive both the divine and human worlds in our awakened state.

A funny thing sometimes happens at this point in the journey, though. Having found bliss and enlightenment, we may not want to return to the ordinary world. The stories of the Enlightened Ones of all ages and faiths, including Moses, Buddha, and Christ, reflect this dilemma. If we do decide to return, accepting the charter of compassionate service in the world, our gift of awakening can help others.

In this way, we blend the notion of Transcendent Oneness with being embodied here on this planet in the material realm – spirit in matter. Our full expression is to realize that the inner and outer are non-different, or as the yogis would say, the subject and object are one. The entire body of the universe is the body of our consciousness.


You might be left pondering, where am I on this journey?

If you’ve read this far then Darkness is in your history. You’ve been Called to the Adventure or beyond. See you on the road…

Who are You, Really?

It’s a simple question, one you’ve been asked myriad times in myriad different ways: Who are you?

Perhaps you are a successful teacher, doctor, lawyer or politician. You may have certain affiliations or ideologies – you are American, Hispanic, female, democrat, atheist. Or perhaps you identify with some set of your most charming attributes – you are tall, good-looking, sexy, and loveable (of course).

In order to feel valuable and safe, we weave together an intricate matrix of thoughts and beliefs that define who we are. These carefully constructed boxes provide a sense of security, but also keep us terribly limited. We expend tremendous energy crafting our identity…and even more energy defending our identity against others who might intentionally or inadvertently threaten it.

Yet, none of these identities is who we really are.

For the past two weeks, I was asked by Arianna and Willow of the Huffington Post to write about my personal story, about my own identity, and the defining moments that brought me to write this column. Yet, paradoxically, the most “defining” moments of life have been those when all definition has been shattered. Let me explain…

When we let go of our myopic self-image, we create an opening for expanded states of awareness. We’ve all experienced an expanded state in some way – through a glimpse of breathtaking beauty that levels us, hearing the first miraculous howl of a newborn child, witnessing the animation of spirit in our lover’s eyes. These experiences vaporize our superficial identity, opening us to the presence of the much larger mystery.

In a similar way, meeting the mysterious Swami in India provoked a radical and life-changing expansion. After our stroll on the beach, he sent me off to meditate. For the first time in my life, as I sat in meditation, I experienced the complete dissolution of my individual identity. The illusory perception of “Stacey”, my ego with all its unsavory neurosis and identity fixations, simply dissolved. There was no differentiation in form – no remaining distinction between self and other.

The illusion of “my” existence as separate from the vastness of consciousness simply disappeared…for several blissful and liberating days. I won’t attempt to describe the experience here as it would literally be impossible. Words and thoughts are by definition parceled fragments of knowledge, finite and inadequate. To “define” is to limit in scope, and this was an expansion so immense as to be limitless and profoundly indescribable. When the experience subsided, I knew everything had changed. Life had been irrevocably altered.

Through this experience, I clearly grasped the fallacy of identity. Our identity is a self-imposed prison where we are our own jailor. The ideas we defend as “me, mine, and I” are the very ideas that keep us captive from our true freedom. The small, ego self is but a paltry sliver of the brilliant, infinite Self of awakened consciousness. By clinging to a few insignificant attributes, we deny ourselves the vastness of all Being.

Once we concede our small identity, we can know the enormity of who we really are. We are set free from jail (and from the jailer!). The wise Swami later explained, “By becoming nothing, you become everything.”

I had asked him to teach me how to create with more ease and joy, and this seemed to be the first lesson: let go of the struggle and the attachment to your limited identity and recognize the vast creative potential of who you really are.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is within,” taught Christ. Heaven is a state of inner freedom, not confined to the afterlife but available this very moment. Surrender you limited, battle-worn identity, and you will find it. The exalted mystical teachers of all faiths have been those stabilized in this universal awareness, knowing and living the truth of the unlimited Self while walking in the world.

So I ask again: Who are you, really?

I’m sure each of you have fascinating life histories, stories that could provoke tears of tenderness and wails of triumph and delight, but which ultimately would not disclose the real you. Similarly, the story I shared these past two weeks relayed the futility of human identity, exposing the parts of “me” that were bound in limitation. I could have told the story a dozen different ways, yet none would have revealed who I really am.

While I celebrate the fascinating diversity of human expression, I ultimately long to know the real you -- the you beyond the exterior identity, the you unbounded by human limitation, the you as vast creative potential. No matter what box you’ve constructed for yourself, you don’t fool me. I’ve played, for a few brief moments, in the field of oneness with you. I’ve seen you naked, revealed, and beautiful…and I’ve touched your deepest Self, where you and I dissolve into one and walk on this earth together as in heaven.

As Rumi magically expressed…

I, you, he, she, we…
In the garden of mystic
Lovers, these
Are not
True

Distinctions
*********
Exercise: I invite you to do the following exercise each night this week before bed. First, mentally review your day, briefly replaying your various activities, and then consciously releasing all “doing” for the day. Now, with pen and paper in hand, tune into your “being”, asking yourself the question “Who Am I?” Fill the page with whatever answers come to mind. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? As you go deeper each night, you will peel back the layers of identity, ultimately revealing the core essence of who you really are. Who are you?

The Call to Adventure

The siren song of India beckoned. I had always been enchanted by the seers, sages and Rishi of ancient India, those who could see beyond the veil of our ordinary reality and who invited us to look too. But I had been far too busy with the serious business of ordinary life for the past ten years to investigate deeply. Now I was drawn to go.

Several days before leaving San Francisco, I was invited to an evening event with a visiting Indian swami. What better way to kick off my voyage, I thought, than by seeing this saintly Indian fellow just a few blocks from my home! As I entered the lecture hall that evening something very strange happened – as if walking through a tear in the universe, I was completely altered. Every intuitive signal went on alert screaming, “pay close attention!” I delighted in the Swami’s presence and was fascinated by his teaching. Then, by some mysterious coincidence, his assistant announced the Swami’s upcoming birthday celebration in India – in the exact town I would be visiting then, and during the few days still unscheduled on my itinerary. Half way around the globe I would intersect with this wise man again. Hmmm, mother India working her magic already?

I landed in Mumbai at 2am, soaking up the sultry thick darkness of the night air. Even at this hour, curious black eyes peered out from the shanty huts lining the roadway and auto-rickshaws buzzed noisily into the night. After exploring Mumbai, I ventured north along the sacred River Ganges to mystical Khajuraho, meditating in the great tantric temples there, then on to the intense and otherworldly Varanasi where, according to legend, souls are automatically liberated from the cycle of reincarnation upon death. A continuous stream of funeral processions snaked through the narrow streets toward massive funeral pyres at river’s edge. Only a short time in India and one confronts the full spectrum, the ecstatic and the jagged, uncensored life and death.

Eventually I headed south to Tamil Nadu, to the Sri Ramana Maharshi ashram, Pondicherry, and dozens of small villages in between. Village life was a swirling mix of colorful markets and enchantingly vibrant temple life, together with heart-breaking beggars, filthy living conditions, and a maddening cacophony of trucks, scooters, rickshaws and oxcarts. Drinking in the sights, sounds, and smells of India has disoriented and intoxicated many a traveler and I was no different. The magic of the place was mind-blowing, and the wretched squalor equally as shocking. There was no place to get one’s footing, as if the paradox of India was designed to deconstruct you.

By the time I arrived at the Swami’s birthday celebration five weeks later, I was blown open and raw…and full to the brim with India, as if I had already gorged on a far too large meal. I wasn’t sure I could swallow another bite, but here I was.

The week-long birthday celebration was a chaotic medley of morning meditations, traditional puja at nearby temples, chanting, fire ceremonies, and special rituals by the sea. Thousands of local Indians crowded the temple grounds for these auspicious ceremonies. In the afternoons and evenings, the Swami would give lectures to smaller groups, including dozens of westerners who had come to take part.

During the middle of the week I was summoned for a walk with the Swami. This was more than a bit surprising given we had never met. He had no knowledge of me or my background, nor did he know my name. From what I could tell, among his many thousands of students, there was rarely opportunity for direct dialogue, so I was intrigued and a bit undone. What could this potent Indian master possibly want to talk about?

While strolling silently along the beach together, he finally spoke, “You’re a successful business woman.”

Curious opener. By most measures I supposed that was true. But how did he know…?

Then he added soberly, “but you’ve got the model entirely wrong.”

I’d just quit a job that had left me exhausted and numb. I’d also just ended a relationship that wasn’t any better. At age 33, I was twenty pounds overweight, had dark circles under my eyes, and friends said I looked fifty. I was a mess…and I clearly did have the model wrong. But what did he mean by…?

“You are expending far too much energy to create far too little. You’re wasting your vital life force, exerting your willpower unnecessarily, and you’re not getting much back.”

I thought silently, “OK, really, how does he know this about me?” He was absolutely right, of course. I had been working hard, satisfying myself with “important” roles and worldly accomplishment, but was left empty and depleted.

“You will learn to create many, many things with perfect ease…but you won’t do it through willpower and struggle. You will need to let go of the way you are doing things now.”

It was a simple but stunning declaration -- one which, if I had truly grasped it in the moment, would have been both terrifying and electrifying. However, at this point, I was barely keeping up.

“Perfect rest is when you are creating consciously. When you are neither efforting, nor idle (then you are bored!).” His eyes sparkled mischievously. “The yogis know how to use their awareness to create the entire universe within their own consciousness. Remember, conscious creation is restful.”

I had no idea what he meant, but was coherent enough to seize the opening. “Will you teach me?” I responded.

With an incredulous look that indicated I must be the most remedial student of all time, the Sage replied, “Isn’t that why you came here?”

As his question hung in the air, I somehow understood that my intention had created a subtle communication, one the Sage had picked up without words. Of course that was why I had come to India. It was the calling of a deeper adventure, the first step toward dissolving my old patterns and awakening to a higher possibility, the first tiny commitment to a more conscious life.

Listening to the Voice Within

To suggest the stork delivered me to the wrong house would be a bit of a misnomer. It was a trailer, actually. A trailer tucked away in the woods, just a few miles outside of Port Angeles, a small logging and mill town in the northwest corner of Washington State. I had been dropped into the boonies far from, well, everything it seemed to me. Certainly far from where the mysteries of life, love and the universe were unfolding.

Despite my despondence at being stuck there, I knew something was brewing. In fact, from a very young age, I knew I was God. This was a simple knowing, a matter of fact, without any lofty self-importance. Something much greater than “me” was directing this life, something profound and magnificent. I was a child, and children know these things.

As a result, I spent hours each night agonizing, yearning, praying to be released from my 7-year-old body so I could get on with the real work at hand. If people only understood the “truth” of their existence, certainly we could remedy the injustices of this world instantly. The declaration of my divinity (and everyone else’s) during Sunday school class was not particularly well received, however, so I eventually tucked this tidbit of knowledge away in the deeper part of my consciousness and set about growing up the way other kids do.

My youth was marked by a series of unpredictable but powerful “a-ha” moments that could only be attributed to this greater creative force (although by that time, I attributed them to my own brilliance). I would be plugging along on my current trajectory when – wham – a life-altering idea would come to mind. Whether it was the sudden flash of becoming valedictorian (not a cosmic ambition, for sure, but it had never occurred to me) or later the impossible thought of attending Harvard Business School (my rural, blue-collar town did not produce Ivy Leaguers), the inner voice would produce astounding notions never before considered.

I wish I could say these simple moments of creative inspiration were accompanied by fearlessness. Far from it. Knowing the path and being free from fear were two very different things. With each inspiration came a sense of overwhelming responsibility – a terrifying imperative – to live up to the calling. The burning desire I felt to get out into the world, the unquenchable passion to do something meaningful in life, was matched by an ever-present accompanying dread that I would fail to pull it off.

During business school, I was unexpectedly seized again by the inner voice, this time in the form of an entrepreneurial idea. I worked day and night on the idea, finishing HBS with $80K in debt, no job, no income, no home or car…but with a business plan! “I must do this,” I heard internally, despite the absurdity of what seemed infinitesimally small odds of pulling it off. I spent four grueling months schlepping up and down Sand Hill Road peddling my plan to venture capitalists. I was 25, naïve, inexperienced, and determined.

I was also terrified. Selling a vision requires resilience, an infallibility and extreme inner strength. While I donned my best mask of confidence, underneath I felt like a charlatan peddling snake oil. After many rejections and many agonizingly sleepless nights filled with doubt, I finally got a “yes”. I raised $7M in two rounds to fund InPart, a company providing internet-based design and sourcing solutions to the industrial marketplace. My father queried me incredulously, “Let me get this straight, they gave you millions of dollars to own a piece of a company that’s worth nothing?” Yep, pretty much.

Consuming but exhilarating, InPart was a true creation of love. We assembled a great team and gained prominence in our industry. Several fantastic years and 75 blue-chip customers later, we sold the company to Parametric Technology Corporation, a multi-billion dollar public software company near Boston.

It was a heady time -- I was 28, a multi-millionaire, and now running a major public company. I moved to Boston and became senior vice president for PTC. The team grew from 150 to over 1200 people. I keynoted major industry forums and traveled the world meeting global 1000 executives. It was a powerful, fast-paced life but it devoured my energy and all my attention. From PTC, I joined Siebel Systems. Again, it was grueling hard work, but I was attracted like a moth to a flame.

I worked myself to the bone, becoming irritable, tense, impatient, demanding. Like gorging on a meal with no nutritional value, I was being sustained by success while my soul was shriveling. After five years of 100K-mile frequent flyer status, I was resigned to waking most mornings in unfamiliar hotel rooms in unknown cities. Exhausted and numb, something was not working.

My mother would say to me during our infrequent calls, “I don’t understand your life.” I’m not sure I did either. Somehow during all this, I had learned to meditate. I could sit on my meditation cushion and attain great states of peace and clarity, even deep mystical experiences reminiscent of my childhood, but the frantic pace of life offered few moments for this luxury. Too busy and too tired to use the tools I knew would bring me deeper wisdom, I focused on ploughing through unending piles of work. Why was wisdom a luxury and not a necessity? What master was I serving?

In my journal I wrote, “For these past months I have felt a dullness and emptiness. Life feels slow and thick, tired. I have lost the thread of desire that connects me with my soul’s purpose for being here. At times I fear my longing will never find me again.”

And yet, even when we distract ourselves, our deeper wisdom is poised awaiting the narrowest entry. After years of focusing on the urgent but empty details of success…another “a-ha” moment.

The inner voice said, “Stop.” Simply, stop. From that pregnant pause came, “You can do anything you want with this life.”

I stopped. I quit my job. I booked a ticket to India.

In India, everything changed…


What inner voice do you follow? Please join me next week for the unfolding tale…

In the 11th Hour, Let’s ask the Deeper Questions Too

We are the Ones We’ve been Waiting For

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships? Are you in right relation?
Where is your water? Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

--The Elders Oraibi, Arizona Hopi Nation


Leonardo DiCaprio’s The11th Hour is an unflinching cautionary tale about our growing environmental crisis. The film speaks volumes about our disconnection from nature and the resulting tendency to exploit our physical landscape. Rather than seeing our soil, water, food, and energy sources as vital, living components of the greater web of life, we see them as assets to be mined, pumped, harvested and sold. This physical disconnect, especially in our urban and industrial settings, contributes to the radical dysfunction we display toward our habitat and home.

The 11th Hour paints the distressing picture of a house on fire. Yet, despite the film’s compelling depiction of the urgency and magnitude of the crisis, I left the San Francisco premier wondering if we weren’t missing a key aspect of human psychology in the equation.

As we race to throw water on the burning building (a vitally urgent and necessary act), let’s also contemplate the pyromaniacs who set the house on fire in the first place – us.


Reflection and Action

Our wisdom traditions teach that the physical world is an expression of our individual and collective consciousness, “As the inner, so is the outer.” The devastating symptoms of the impending ecological crisis, the gruesome expressions in our physical environment, are direct reflections of our collective inner landscape.

Perhaps if we understood the deeper workings of the human psyche, we might have insight into the root cause of the crisis we face…and a better sense of the path out.

I spoke with environmentalist, entrepreneur, and author, Pawl Hawken, to explore this topic. “The world is a reflection of who we are,” commented Hawken, “but I’ve always felt this alone is a cop out. If someone’s hurting, you help them. Peace is an ‘inside job’, but the act of helping changes who we are inside.”

So inner reflection and external action go hand-in-hand. But who among us is doing the inner reflection? What can we do to address the up-close-and-personal aspect of our shared crisis? The following is a prescription to consider:


1) Get Physically Connected

“Whether it’s trees, landmarks, soil, water, blue skies, or the weather itself. We are losing our places,” says Hawken.

Our loss of connection with nature not only reflects a fundamental aspect of our crisis, but, ironically, simultaneously diminishes our capacity to solve it. It is imperative to get physically connected again. We need to spend more time outside -- going into our yards, our parks, our forests and walking consciously on the earth. As we make contact with nature, we can acknowledge our need for stability, sustenance and nutrients. As we breathe the air, acknowledge our reliance on each breath that follows. As we put flowers in our homes, acknowledge the fundamental human need for beauty. When our lives are barren of these most fundamental connections to our earth, then our hearts will be barren of empathy and our minds barren of options.


2) Feel the Grief of Being Implicated

No matter what we’re doing individually to help the environment, it is not enough. Sit with this for a few moments. Take in this truth -- be fully implicated for everything you’ve done to contribute to this terrible crisis and everything you haven’t done to fix it. Don’t move, don’t act, don’t think. Just feel the truth of it. Heartbreaking and overwhelming? Yes, but do it anyway. Don’t skip this step.

“Individuals come to points in their lives when they become depressed or down. Those are the teachable moments,” says Hawken. “The transformative moments are not the peak experiences, the joy, the getting the gold medal. The transformative moments are reflective.”

Let’s use our depression as a teacher.

The unconscious desire to avoid personal implication keeps us ineffective and in denial. We don’t like feeling the heartbreak of personal responsibility, but this same heartbreak can be incredibly powerful if we face it consciously. It brings a tenderness that can lead to a spontaneous upwelling of new insight, new possibility. From the ground of an open heart arises the wisdom of the ages, something beyond the individual self that holds the collective in its care. Many Native American elders speak of making decisions on behalf of seven generations of unborn children. When we cultivate an open heart we also cultivate the courage to hold the interest of greater whole within it.


3) Jettison Despair

Being accountable for our past is one thing, despairing over the future is another. Biologist Rene Dubois once said, “Despair is a sin.” Despair is a common fear response that moves us back into denial and inaction.

“In despair, we help no one. We fix nothing. We aid nothing. We nurture nothing,” says Hawken. “It’s too late for heroes and it’s time for humans. What we need is to be more human, more humane -- first to ourselves, then to each other, then outward. That involves listening, compassion, kindness, generosity, humility.”

Despair constricts the heart and makes us feel powerless. Don’t be tricked into giving away your power that easily. We have a full range of available choices and actions in this crisis. “The world has precipitated this situation -- the teaching is before us. The gift is that we are being asked to change who we are.”


4) Peer into the Mirror

We can’t remain who we are. Something must change, and that something is us.

“In order to solve this problem, everybody has to walk through the looking glass sooner or later…and it’s not a pleasant experience,” says Hawken. “We are in a linear ‘Take-Make-Waste’ civilization that is destroying its habitat. All of us are responsible.”

So how do we pass through the portal? Once we’ve acknowledged our culpability, we can start to investigate our own interior, especially the parts we have carefully denied. If our planet is a mirror, then it is reflecting internal states of fear, greed, exploitation, waste, manipulation, violence, callousness. Look closely – where do those qualities exist in you? Be honest. Once we recognize the earth’s wounds as our own, we can start the process of healing.

This exploration into the shadow is a necessary exercise that requires courage. Without it, we will continue to expend effort treating the ghastly superficial symptoms but missing the deeper deadly infection. We will scramble madly to throw water on the burning building while the pyromaniacs (us) simultaneously set new rooms ablaze. “The 11th Hour is a shadow film,” claims Hawkens. “Once you own your shadow, you become whole.”


5) Declare Your Vision for the Future

Once we embrace the whole, we can see with greater clarity how the quality of our consciousness determines the quality of our world and our future.

Our fear and aggression has been a powerful shadow force, but our hopes and desires are an even greater creative force. We have the power to move beyond our fears by exposing the unexpressed desires that underlie them. Through declaring our hopes and desires, we can create a new vision for the future.

As The 11th Hour suggests, we have a stunning opportunity (and obligation) to completely re-conceive virtually every human system. We each have a piece of the overall puzzle -- our job is to discover our piece and live it. “If your idea of being alive is to be full of ease, comfort and illusion, it’s probably not a good time for you,” says Hawken. “If your idea of being alive is to take part in conceiving a whole new future, this is a stunning time to be alive.”


6) Tend to the Details

Of course, a brilliant vision is only meaningful if put into practice. So, tend to the details of your piece of the puzzle. If you are a business person, set a timeline for zero-waste or carbon-neutral. If you are a commuter, go hybrid or use public transportation. If you are a parent, adopt the earth into your family and let your children know it. Just as you would tend to the details of your own child’s health and well-being (hygiene, education, nutrition, etc.), tend to the details of your earth’s health (power-saving light bulbs, recycling, involvement in remedying local injustices, etc.). Once you’ve taken the first steps, take the next steps, and then the next.

“On the tactical side, the technological solutions are here,” says Hawken. “I’m not saying that stunning new things aren’t being invented all the time, but that’s not the obstacle. The obstacle, of course, is ourselves.”


Perhaps this should be the theme of the next movie? “It should be called Solutions,” says Hawken. “It’s about who we are, what we’re doing, and the extraordinary possibility in all this.”

The Hopi Elders might have it right. In the 11th Hour, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Igniting the Modern Mystic

I’ve always adored the great mystics – Hafiz, Rumi, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross. Their writings transcend our mundane human perception and give glimpses into the rapturous experience of a higher reality. Truth be told, I fancy myself a modern day mystic, someone weaving together these worlds of the mundane and the magical.

When asked at dinner parties or social events what kind of work I do, I find it an awkward question. The simple answer is that I’m an entrepreneur, investor, teacher, speaker and writer. But, there’s far more to it than that. As Khalil Gibran once wrote, “work is love made visible”. I find building social ventures and connecting with people in a teaching environment as ecstatic as love-making. The ultimate reason to create, teach, speak or write is to dissolve the veil of separation and reveal the intimate union of all existence...to awaken a recognition of ourselves as One with all that is.

So when Arianna Huffington asked me to write a column on conscious living and spirituality I was simultaneously thrilled and tentative. Thrilled because these topics provoke great joy for me. Tentative because authenticity demands a level of revealed public dialogue that I’ve previously saved for engaged audiences or private circles. It demands an even deeper level of “love made visible”.

Lest this sound trite, let me add that the mystic’s love is not blind to the complication and suffering in the world. It is all-embracing, using the full human experience as fuel for the raging fire of awakening. Our modern lives are difficult. We face social injustices, environmental crises, war, economic imbalances, poverty, hunger, a vast array of suffering across our planet.

By comparison, it would seem rather easy to check into a monastery or convent and pursue a peaceful life of contemplative practice. In my quiet moments I’ve considered this path, but know it will never be. The hour is late and the crises of our world too great. We have a profound responsibility to awaken from our slumber and re-ignite our creative energies in service to a more sustainable (and ecstatic) human existence. We can do this through the substance of our everyday lives – in our work, in our relationships, in our politics, in our homes -- if we are awake.

This column is about the necessary commitment to conscious awakening and the resulting possibility of collectively re-imagining and repairing our world. It is a sacred journey born in the mystical fire of our modern lives – families, children, careers, health, relationships, finances – where our uncensored experiences are the fuel for the transformation.

We will explore how, through that transformation, we can walk in the world with a greater sense of wonder, delight, humility and compassionate action. How we can at once surrender to the greatness of the flow of life and find our power there, navigating the grand paradoxes – those that would have us believe we need to struggle, fight, and effort our way forward, when in fact our most powerful purpose emerges when we lay down that effort. How we can reside in the moment, being fully present with the creative currents that arise right now, and follow them without a plan for where they might take us.

This is the delight of the soul’s unfolding and fertile ground for a new collective wisdom. If we let it, the divine voice will seduce us from our self-imposed limitation, from the narrow sense of our possession of life, into the vastness of all Being.
Over the coming weeks I hope to beckon, encourage, and inspire this soul’s journey - a journey together of making love visible.